Egyptian Arabic Absolute Beginner's Workshop

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About This Course

Published 3/2016
English

Course Description

Egyptian Arabic is a spoken language that is highly interactive, and the best way to master it is by actually interacting with people. This course aims to give you key expressions and phrases that you can use to immediately begin communicating. You will learn how to engage in simple, friendly conversations that signal respect for the person and the culture, and an eagerness to learn.

Start learning Egyptian Arabic by mastering the interactive, relational building blocks given in this course.

Information about when to use formal or informal variations, depending on who you're talking to

Useful functional words and expressions that you'll need for your next steps, including numbers, pronouns, questions, and requests

Communicate from Day 1 to accelerate your learning of Egyptian Arabic

This course will focus on giving you initial tools that you can use to interact, right away. These are not randomly chosen vocabulary items. They are foundational words and expressions that will allow you to begin to interact in Egyptian Arabic. You will learn the initial Arabic you need to start connecting relationally with Egyptians.

The vocabulary that you will use, once you have completed the course, will immediately signal to the people with whom you are speaking that you appreciate and respect them, you enjoy their language and culture, and that you want to learn more. It will position you to take advantage of the friendliness and outgoingness of most Egyptians, as you interact with them in an open, friendly, interested way.

What are the requirements?

Students need to be able to understand English, the language of instruction

Knowledge of the Arabic alphabet is not needed for this course

No special materials or software are required

What am I going to get from this course?

Interact in Egyptian Arabic on an introductory level, using key expressions and words

Use helpful borrowed words (“cognates”) from other languages that are part of Egyptian Arabic

What is the target audience?

This course is designed for absolute beginners in Egyptian Arabic. It can also serve as an excellent refresher course for people who learned Egyptian Arabic in the past, but have been out of practice. It is also helpful for students of Modern Standard Arabic who want to explore the most-spoken dialect in the Arab world. This course is probably not for you if you're looking to learn more advanced and complex Egyptian Arabic.

In this lesson, we look at greetings to use in the morning and evening. Each greeting consists of an initial word spoken, and a correct response.

Lesson Notes

Different contexts call for different expressions when greeting people.

In Egyptian Arabic, greetings usually have a formulaic response. The person greeting says the first part of the greeting formula, and the person being greeted responds with a different but related response.

Your mindset makes all the difference in whether or not you successfully learn Arabic. Many Arabic learners approach the language with a secret feeling that they will never be able to really use the language effectively, that it's too difficult of a language. Here, we dispel that myth!

It's important that we approach Egyptian Arabic the way that it's actually used and not the way that we or other people think that it should be used. Arabic has traditionally been taught with a focus on using the "proper" language, but in this workshop we will focus instead on what most Egyptians say on a day to day basis.

Prescriptive approach to language: How a language “should” be spoken

Descriptive approach: How a language is actually spoken

In this workshop we will take a descriptive approach. We will look at how the language is actually used, as well as what the typical contexts are.

By the end of this lesson, you will know how to ask the question "How are you?" to a male, a female, or a group. You will understand the context in which to use a more formal/respectful version of the question, and when to use the informal.

Lesson Notes

In this lesson, we learn two different ways in which we can talk to someone: informal, and respectful. In Egyptian Arabic, it is important to use a respectful tone when the situation or relationship calls for it.

We also will learn the different form that many words take when you are addressing a male, a female, or a group.

In this lesson you will learn how to use "please" and "thank you", as well as make polite requests. You will be able to apologize, ask someone their name in a polite or casual way, and tell people what your name is.

Lesson Notes

The goal of learning key polite expressions is to be able to, with a few words, communicate a readiness to interact with the Egyptian Arabic speaker with whom you are speaking. This is normally received in a very positive, friendly way.

This lesson is packed with useful vocabulary, including "yes" and "no, and the question words "who?", "what?", "when?", "where?", "why?", and "how?". It explains the well-known Egyptian Arabic expressions "In shaa' Allah" (God willing), and "ya3ni", as well as expanding your understanding of the many possible shades of meaning of "al-Hamdu li-lleh".

Lesson Notes

This lesson lays the foundation for asking and answering questions by giving 6 question words and 5 answer expressions.

In this lesson we will learn to count from 11-20, using the numbers 1-10 as building blocks. We will then add the numbers 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, and then learn patterns that allow us to combine our numbers to create any number between 21 and 99.

Language learning experts agree that learning cognates (words whose origins are in other languages, making them familiar to people who know those languages) is a helpful way to increase your vocabulary. In this lesson we will look at 10 cognates related to interactions, financial transactions, technology, and more.

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Instructor Biography

I teach writing at the American University in Cairo and design software in my own private company. I am an Arabic learner and teacher. I have lived in Egypt for 25 years, and use Arabic as a part of my everyday life. I love enabling people to interact with the Arab world. I am originally from Canada!